Monthly Archives: March 2013

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins… If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed!!

Death is swallowed up in victory! Oh death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

I saw a lot of human anger yesterday.Screaming, tears, words flung that stick deeply in the back.Hurts dredged up from years ago – their cumulative weight crushing thoughts of reconciliation.Spirits crouched like a wounded animal, alternatively licking its wounds and lunging at anyone coming close.Words urging forgiveness brushed away with recitations of offense.The best resolution thought possible – “I just won’t speak to her anymore” – ends in screaming.Five long hours a scant sentence in the story of lifelong feud.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us

He had every right to be angry with me.I was born screaming at Him, fighting, irreverence flung in His face.Pretending He’d done something wrong – blaming Him for the offenses of people.And while my spirit crouched defensively, ready to snap whenever He came close, His spirit was busy finding a way to reconciliation.Every time I brushed away His forgiveness with recitations of my own efforts, He re-extended His hand full of grace.

Your anger has turned away and you have comforted me

Perhaps it is because this is so unlike human anger that it startles me each time I read it.He doesn’t just call a silent truce, resolving simply not to speak with me.He stills His anger, turns and embraces me.The fight drains out of my stiffened, arching spirit.I expect a recitation of my offenses, but He Whispers something about a deep, deep sea and hugs me closer.While I watch Him cautiously, waiting for the first hint of accusation, He points tearfully at a cross.“All that,” He whispers, “all that for this reconciliation. All that for peace between us.”

Reading through my journals from my first two years living in South Asia is embarrassing. The first year, especially, was more often difficult than enjoyable. Much of my frustration and anger became directed at the leaders responsible for guiding me through the process. They were strangers, at the time, mysteriously placing me in uncomfortable situations that ground every last reserve out of me. There are pages that lapse into nothing short of hatred.

On this side of the experiences, I can see they were doing it for my benefit. To keep me from making the same mistakes they had, to show me the path to longevity. At the time, I resented it; now I would thank them. As I prepare to help other new people arrive, I respect even more what it cost my leaders to help me get my bearings here.

***

The novel Gilead is written as a memoir from a dying pastor to his nine year old son. He’s desperate to write to his son the family stories and lessons he will not be there to share in person.

He expounds in the very middle of the book on the fifth of the Ten Commandments, to “honor your father and mother”. He sees honoring your parents as a way to learn to fulfill the larger command to honor everyone. Once you’ve learned the discipline of honoring by honoring your parents you will also be capable of honoring everyone else.

He rejects the idea of “honoring” meaning not going “out of your way to defy [authority]” since “that really cheapens the notion of honoring… It would not be anything beautiful enough or important enough to be placed right at the center of the Ten Commandments”. Instead, honoring is a way to set apart something “so that their holiness will be perceived”, a way to be led into the “sense of the sacredness of the person who is its object”.

In the parent-child relationship, he says, the parent is the greater mystery because “so much of our lives has passed”. They are the child’s first experience with people “who usually labor and are heavy-laden, and may be cranky or stingy or ignorant or overbearing” – people who do things incomprehensible to the child.

As he applies this principle of honoring to the boy’s mother, his wife, he alludes a great sorrow and courage in her indicative of immense previous hardship. He urges his son to live with great gentleness and kindness towards his mother because of this understanding of her history.

In urging this attitude towards his mother, the pastor is, by extension, urging this attitude towards all people. Honoring one another means living in light of the awareness that they are a great mystery to us. That they have lived much of their life, thought most of their thoughts, outside the realm of our understanding. In respect of past sorrows and hardships which we may know nothing about, we are called to live with those around us from a posture of great gentleness and kindness.

Too often I judge someone more quickly than my limited understanding should allow. Too often I must retract unkind or harsh pronouncements when the reality of another person’s being created in the image of God is forced upon my consciousness. As I slowly learn to honor those I do not understand, I’m growing more aware of the sacredness of the mysterious people around me.